![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Mark-Ferguson-218x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFerg\u2019s Sports Bar has weathered nearly every version of downtown St. Petersburg. It opened before Major League Baseball arrived. It survived the construction of Tropicana Field, multiple redevelopment proposals surrounding the stadium and the uncertainty that followed the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 decision to walk away from a new ballpark deal.<\/p>\n
Now, owner Mark Ferguson is placing another bet on downtown\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg City Council unanimously approved two 99-year ground lease agreements Thursday that will see Ferguson contribute $6 million toward the city\u2019s $7 million purchase of nearly a mile of abandoned railroad corridor for the Booker Creek Trail project.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark Ferguson<\/p>\n
The city will acquire the former CSX rail corridor and lease portions of it back to Ferguson, whose sports bar and adjacent property have occupied the land for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been leasing this same piece of property for the last 33 years,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201cThe railroad will be sold to the city and leased back to us. We can use it for whatever we want for our business.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ferguson, the investment positions his bar for the future, similar to his initial investment, which was made in anticipation of the arrival of baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a lot more business from it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will be apartments and retail built there. Business will be brought to the Trop, EDGE District and Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Booker Creek Trail will transform approximately .86 miles of unused railroad into a multi-use trail.<\/p>\n
City officials have described the project as both a recreational amenity and an economic development tool, creating a pedestrian and bicycle corridor through one of downtown\u2019s fastest-growing areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will give people another option to walk, ride bikes, use scooters,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want more cars on the streets. The more people we can get walking and riding bikes in the downtown area the better it is for everybody because we have limited parking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with one of downtown\u2019s largest parking garages across the street, Ferguson said demand already outpaces supply. \u201cIt fills up pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferguson knows better than most how much downtown has changed. He opened Ferg\u2019s in 1992 after purchasing what had been a neighborhood gas station, years before the Tampa Bay Devil Rays played their first game across the street. What began as a modest sports bar gradually expanded into one of St. Petersburg\u2019s best-known gathering places, growing alongside the city\u2019s emergence as a regional destination.<\/p>\n
That long view helps explain why he\u2019s willing to make another substantial investment despite uncertainty surrounding the future of the Historic Gas Plant District.<\/p>\n
Mayor Ken Welch recently selected Blake Investment Partners as his preferred developer for the 86-acre site, but negotiations remain ahead and a future City Council could still reject or alter the project.<\/p>\n
Ferguson isn\u2019t deterred. \u201cI think it\u2019s a great deal for everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are in one of the fastest-growing downtown areas in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Trop site being redone, that will bring us a lot of new business,\u201d Ferguson continued. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see five years from now what it will pan out to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is we get a convention center,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd my feeling is the Rays will stub their toe in Tampa and will stay in St. Pete.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city expects to close on the railroad property later this month. Construction of the Booker Creek Trail will likely take several years, but for Ferguson, the investment reflects the same confidence that led him to open a sports bar on the edge of downtown.<\/p>\n
This time, he believes the next chapter won\u2019t just benefit Ferg\u2019s \u2013 it will connect entire neighborhoods that have long been separated by unused rail lines and surface parking, bringing more people through the heart of downtown without adding more cars to its already crowded streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar has weathered nearly every version of downtown St. Petersburg. It opened before Major League Baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-337165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}